125 stories for 125 years

A history of the pharmacy profession and pharmaceutical industry’s support for the college

The college’s development and growth since 1881 has been made possible by great support from the pharmacy profession and pharmaceutical industry. Many individuals, companies and organisations have donated generously to ensure the college continues to grow and that its students and researchers have access to the best facilities and equipment.

Here is snapshot of the some of the major appeals that have greatly assisted the college:

County Court Museum campus upgrade in Swanston St , 1918-1919

In 1918 the number of students had grown to 42 students in chemistry plus 75 medical students and the facilities were stretched to the limit. When WWI ended, enrolments were expected to increase with ex-servicemen wanting to resume their studies or choosing to enter the profession. The lack of accommodation was an urgent problem. The Pharmaceutical Society of Victoria, who ran the college, knew it was unlikely to be able to raise the money for extensions through bank loans because of post-war financial constraints. It had never sought money from the government for building works and such a grant was unlikely anyway.

The society’s council decided to appeal to the profession for donations. In anticipation of a generous response from the profession, plans were drawn up to build a new lecture theatre, capable of seating 133 students, over the existing museum, which was the original courtroom. A room for female students, a cloakroom and additional lavatories were also included in the plans. Forty new working benches would be installed in the large laboratory. The work was primarily to house the class for medical students and if it were not completed in time for the 1919 session the council would have to inform Melbourne University that it could not accommodate the class.

By the end of 1918, almost £800 had been promised and it was hoped the fund would reach £1000. The contract was for £2228 and work began as soon as the college session ended. During the work it was discovered that the original building was about to collapse and the museum roof was in a dangerous condition. The final cost of the additions was £3015, of which £1194 had been raised by the appeal to pharmacists.

Appeal to build the new college at Parkville, 1959

As Swanston street became more crowded and the old buildings more expensive to maintain, a vision to build a new college begun. The State Government promised £210,000 to be available in the financial year ending 30 June 1958. But the estimated total cost rose to £500,000 and early in 1958 the society realised it would not have sufficient money to complete the project.

The council took what it considered a bold step in hiring professionals, the Wells Organization, to conduct an appeal to members of the profession and the drug industry with a target of £200,000. The appeal committee was chaired by Geoffrey Grimwade and the General Chairman was George Nicholas, the founder of Nicholas Aspro Pty Ltd and a former student. The committee consisted of the council members and Harry Braithwaite, Nigel Manning, Allan Callister and A.T.S. Sissons.

The appeal was launched in July. A dinner was held in the St Kilda Town Hall in August with 650 metropolitan chemists attending. The college staff formed a social club with the aim of raising funds and in September Sigma Co. Ltd donated £15,000 for the Sigma Museum. During 1959 a museum committee was established to oversee planning and operation of the new museum. The response to the appeal was magnificent ‘to the point of liberality’ with every active pharmacist in the state contributing an average of £100.

In 1959 the next phase was begun when the council commissioned its president, Sir Eric Scott, the president of the Pharmacy Board, Nigel Manning, and the federal director of Pharmacy Public Relations, Keith Attiwill, to seek support for the appeal in the United States of America from American pharmaceutical firms operating in Australia.

Andrew Manning later related that his father and Scott were taken to lunch by a large pharmaceutical drug company. “They were the first ones that he and Eric had seen and they took them out for an expensive lunch in New York and I think offered them US$1000 and Dad left the room, told them he wouldn’t accept it and when they feigned surprise he said: ‘Well if you give us $1000 every other drug company is going to do the same and our mission will fail’. So they gave him $10,000 and offered him a job,” said Andrew.

During their eight weeks overseas, several substantial donations were received and more were promised. By the end of 1959, more than £200,000 had been pledged (with £116,452 from society members and £100,389 from the pharmaceutical industry) and more than half had been received. In all, Scott and Manning made four overseas trips and £750,000 was raised.

The Cossar family were very generous benefactors to this appeal donating twenty five thousand pounds. A pharmacy journal noted the donation was ‘possibly the largest single gift made to a pharmaceutical teaching institution in Australia at any time’, and was in fact double the amount of the next largest individual donation to the appeal. Cossar Hall was named to honour their generosity.

Manning building construction: the Furnish and Equip Appeal, 1967

With consistently high enrolments at the Parkville campus and an expanding research program, the college was again rapidly outgrowing its premises. In addition, it was apparent that the profession had ‘made the mistake of replicating all the old Swanston Street facilities,’ according to Nigel Manning. Adding ‘The new building was designed for the old course of training, on a larger and more handsome site at Parkville. No laboratories were provided for physics, physiology, pharmacology, microbiology, advanced chemistry, or industrial pharmacy’.

In 1967 the council bought an adjoining property for $117,000. The purchase would enable expansion when funds permitted but, in the meantime, the gracious Federation house on the site, still with servant buttons intact, was used for staff rooms, student activities and tutorials.

A Building Committee, chaired by Alistair Lloyd, was formed in 1966 consisting of the executive of the society’s council, the dean and the society’s architect. Samuel Baird had retired from the council by this stage but was invited to join the committee because of his broad experience with funding and overseeing the building of the college at Parkville. The proposed new building was designed to complement the existing buildings. It was planned to build three floors at an estimated cost of $526,000. The ground floor would have student rooms and the library. It was hoped future government funding would enable construction of another two storeys and animal holding facilities would be built on the top of the building. The council made the bold decision to use the government funding to complete five storeys and furnish three storeys and that it would raise the $280,000 needed to complete the furnishing and equipment of the new building. A new fundraising campaign was launched. The money would be used for teaching and research into cancer drugs, heart drugs and the chemistry of Australian plants.

The fundraising committee produced a booklet featuring a painting of the college by Nornie Gude. The original painting was presented to the council. The booklet was sent to all Victorian pharmacists and meetings were held in regional country centres. The organisers sought pledges of donations over four years. By May 1967, promises amounting to $172,000 had been obtained.

The remarkable generosity of the profession was explained by Dr Geoffrey Vaughan: ‘It was because the college was owned and operated by the Pharmaceutical Society and the students were always hammered that when you graduate this is your college — you own it — and that created an unbelievable atmosphere of philanthropy and generosity, so much so that a lot of pharmacists realised that there was a commitment, that if they were going to be successful in pharmacy they had to give something back again’. He added that men like Norman Cossar ‘couldn’t give enough money’. The next stage of the fundraising plan was to approach industry. Promises of $100,000 were soon secured and there were hopes of more to follow.

In September 1967, Sir Eric Scott and Nigel Manning visited all the major drug companies in the United States of America with Australian connections on another of their fundraising missions. While awaiting the new building, temporary extensions in the physics laboratory were made to provide about 50 per cent extra space for demonstrating.

In 1968 a nuclear magnetic resonance spectrometer valued at $18,000 was installed. The first of its kind in Australia, it had been funded through this appeal. It was college and council policy that, under appropriate supervision, undergraduates were permitted to use such sophisticated equipment, whereas in Britain it would usually be reserved for the use of graduate students.

In 1968 council was presented with an inscribed scroll listing the 400 students who had unsolicitedly pledged to donate a total of $80 each during the first four years after graduation. This gift of $32,000 was used to help launch a second appeal to raise an additional $280,000. Tenders for the new building closed on 15 July 1968. It was to be built in stages and the estimated cost had now risen to $1.2 million. The college had received donations and pledges totalling $540,000 for furnishing and equipping the building. In 1969 the structure to support the new laboratory wing and animal house was erected with a State-Commonwealth grant of $550,000 and the 1970-1972 triennium grant of $739,500 permitted the completion of the building.

The Drug Appeal, 1974

The society launched a drug research appeal at the beginning of July 1974. It hoped to raise $150,000 to support 30 graduate research workers at the college. Nigel Manning said the college could accommodate up to 40 researchers.

Manning earmarked the money for research because the Federal Labor Government had abolished fees for tertiary courses and introduced living allowances for those who needed them. The college also benefited from the generosity of the family of Samuel Baird who had died in 1970 before the new building was completed. The family sponsored the landscaping of the grounds after the new building was finished and, at a function in May 1975, a plaque was unveiled to commemorate Baird’s efforts in establishing the college on the Parkville site. Generous sponsorship from the pharmaceutical industry continued and included the endowment of the M.A. Nicholas Industrial Chair of Biopharmaceutics in 1977.

1981 Centenary Appeal

In 1981 an extensive centenary program was organised to celebrate the college’s first 100 years. It included an appeal to create a centenary scholarship for postgraduates. Vic Feehan wrote a booklet on the college’s history and a commemorative pre-stamped envelope was issued by Australia Post. The Premier of Victoria, Rupert Hamer, delivered the centenary address and presented the awards at the opening ceremony on 18 March. He unveiled a sculpture by Lenton Parr, principal of the Victorian College of the Arts. Titled Acrux, after the brightest star in the Southern Cross, the sculpture was the gift of Pharmaceutical Defence Ltd and donated in memory of Ernest Braithwaite, its chairman for 22 years.

In May 1981 a centenary ball was held in the Melbourne Town Hall and a week of seminars was held with local and overseas speakers, including: Professor W.C. Bowman, University of Strathclyde; Professor Raymond Gosselin, Massachusetts College of Pharmacy; and Dean Mossberg and Professor Higuchi, both from the University of Kansas. A special grant of $3000 from the Victorian Government sponsored Higuchi’s visit. There was a state reception for the centenary visitors, council members of the college and other guests. The grand finale of the celebrations was a banquet in the great hall of the National Gallery of Victoria, with 400 guests dining under Leonard French’s jewel-like stained glass ceiling. Dean Frank Fish of the School of Pharmacy, University of London, gave the centenary oration at this function.

The Centenary Appeal, headed by Manning as the chairman of the appeal committee and Vaughan as the appeal director, raised an impressive $240,000.

The Victorian College of Pharmacy Foundation Annual Appeal, 2004 –

The Victorian College of Pharmacy Foundation launched its first Annual Appeal in May 2004. Since then the Annual Appeal has raised $75,136 towards building an endowment for the college that will fund special projects outside the college's normal teaching and research revenue.

If you would like to make a donation, please contact the Foundation on tel: +61 3 9903 9507.